Guard for razors and hair clippers



F. F. STARR l GUARD FOR RAZORS AND HAIR CLIPPERS Nav. 12', i940.

,Filed July 19, 1938 lNvENToR Ffe/AMA/fwf ATTORNEY A Patented Nov.- 12, 1940 UNITED STATES *PATENT 'o1-Fica GUARD Fon RAzoBs AND Ham CLlPPEns Ferdinand F. starr, New York, N. Y. Application July 19, 193s, serial No. 219,941

3 Claims.

This invention relates to guards for the type of shaving apparatus commonly known as a dry shaver.

The shaving ,head of certain kinds of such apparatus consists of a skin-contacting plate having a series of slots forming blades between the slots and a cutter having a plurality of cutting edges located beneath the plate. Cutting of hair is effected by a shearing action produced by relative reciprocation of the plate and the cutter and the co-actlon of the blades of the plate and the cutting edges of the cutter. In many such devices the plate is flat and the blades exhibit rather sharp projecting ends which tend to dig into and scrape the skin and thereby produce irritation, this eifect being increasingly accentuated as the angle of the implement with respect to the surface being shaved increasingly departs from a perpendicular position with respect thereto.

'I'he principal object of my invention is to equip such apparatus with means for preventing these objectionable elects. The object is accomplished by providing means to be attached to the apparatus which will cause a smooth travel of the plate over the skin, both by stretching' the wave of skin in advance of the plate and by reducing the pressure of the projecting ends of the blades on the skin.

Referring to the drawing,

Fig. 1 isa perspective view of the type of shaving apparatus referred to, with my device attached thereto;

Fig. 2 is a broken view on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a view on the line 3 3 of Fig. 1 with part of the casing however not shown;

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of my device;

Fig. 5 is an obverse view of Fig. 3.

Describing the drawing more speciiically, the

dry shaver itself consists of a casing i which serves as a handle and also encloses the motor and driving parts for actuating the cutting members. The cutting head consists of thefh'ollow stationary member 2 comprising a fiat skin contacting plate consisting of the blades 3 and the inner cutter 4. The inner cutter is caused to reciprocate by the vibratory motion of the leverV 5, which motion is effected by suitable'actuating connection with the motor, but, as the nature of such a connection is well known in the art and as its details are not important so far as my invention is concerned. it will not be further described. The blades of the skin-engaging plate usually project as shown at 6 forming a multitude of sharp points which are, as has been bevfore` noted, the cause of considerable skin irritation when the device is being used for the intended purpose, the intensity of this skin irritation increasing las it is tipped from a position perpendicular to the surface being shaved.

In order to prevent this undesirable effect, I mount on each side of the skin-engaging plate a series of balls 1 and 8 carried in ball containlers 9 and II) and conned therein, although loosely enough to permit them to freely rotate in all directions, by tipping over the edges of the channel sections of the container as shown at I I. The balls are prevented from leaving the channels at their ends by tipping over the DOrtions I2 Voi the channels and the channels are connected together as shown at I2a and I2b.

As a means'of locating and attaching my de vice to the shaving apparatus so that the two series of balls are properly located to serve as a guard and are in proper relation to the plate, I provide one of the channelsfor example, the channel I0, with a tongue I3 slotted as shown at Il, which slot engages with the shank of a set screw I5. 'I'his set screw is a standard part of a certain kind of dry shaving apparatus in connection with which I'propose to use my device, but. in the absence of such a se't screw, any projection will serve as well. The .other channel 9 may be provided with a depending tongue I6 adapted by its construction to engage with apertures II and I8 in the casing. Such apertures are characteristically found in the type of shaving apparatus to which I have above referred, but, in their absence may be provided, or projections may be utilized for vthe same purpose. The tngue I6 in this particular case is bifurcated as shown in order that it may engage with both the apertures I'I and I8, and be thereby anchored, by turning over the ends until they form complete or partial hooks, as shown at I9, Fig. 2. It is best that the engagement of the hooks with the apertures be releasable by merely exerting a strain on the tongue I6 and for this purpose the partial hooks are preferable. In this way the device may be not only attached to the shaving apparatus by slipping it down over the plate but may be also detached therefrom by merely exerting a manual pull.

It will be seen that, since each ball composing the guard can rotate in any direction, the device provided with such guards can also be moved across the face of a user in any direction-4. e.. transversely to the ball channels, lengthwise of them, or in any direction between these two and still utilize the rotative action of the balls. This is an advantage since most users of dry shavers do not confine themselves to a motion that is parallel with the blade slots but, on the contrary, find that shaving can be effectively accomplished by moving the implement in various directions.

While I have described certain particular embodiments of my invention, I do not desire to be limited to these particular embodiments since many changes and modications may easily be made" without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims.

I claim:

l. A guard device for a razor of the type characterized by a shaving head that includes a skincontacting plate mounted on a handle, said guard device comprising two parallel connected guards spaced to permit the location therebetween of said shaving head and also provided with a tongue adapted to engage an anchorage located on the said handle each of said guards comprising a channel with a series of balls coniined therein.

2. A guard device for a razor of the type characterized by a shaving head that includes a skincontacting plate mounted on a handle provided with an aperture in one side, said guard device comprising two parallel connected guards spaced to permit the location therebetween of said shaving head and also provided with a tongue terminating in a hook adapted to engage said aperture, each of said guards comprising a channel with a series of balls conned therein.

3. A guard device for a razor of the type characterized by a shaving head that includes a skincontacting plate mounted on a handle, said guard device comprising two parallel connected guards spaced to permit the location therebetween of said shaving head and also provided with a tongue terminating in a hook adapted to engage an aperture in the side of said handle,

'each of said guards comprising a channel with a series of balls conned therein.

FERDINAND F. STARR. 

